Takeaways: Wild’s third period comeback falls short in 5-2 loss to Stars

The Wild’s stagnant offense while playing 5-on-5 is getting harder to ignore.

Despite a dominating third period that included two power play goals to pull within one, the Wild’s rally stalled with a 5-2 loss to the Stars on Tuesday at American Airlines Center after Dallas buried two empty-netters.

This dropped the Wild to 2-2 in the young NHL season. They haven’t tallied an even-strength goal since the opener Thursday at St. Louis when they won 5-0.

“We’re getting ourselves back in it,” rookie defenseman Zeev Buium told reporters in Dallas. “But at the same time, we have chances to capitalize early on, and we don’t. We gotta improve on that.”

Stars goalie and Lakeville native Jake Oettinger made 39 saves, and Dallas remained undefeated at 3-0 by giving the Wild a taste of their own medicine: The Stars connected on both of their power plays.

The latter was a fortuitous bounce; early in the second period, Matt Duchene’s centering attempt deflected in off Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian’s left skate for a 3-0 lead.

Although this was the second half of a back-to-back for the Wild, who needed a four-round shootout Monday night to outlast the Kings 4-3 in St. Paul, they didn’t look tired.

But not converting any of those chances into goals hurt the Wild, especially once the Stars did capitalize.

“We came out really well first 10 minutes,” Matt Boldy said, “and then they kind of stepped on the gas a little.”

At 5:37 of the first period, Esa Lindell weaved a shot through traffic. The Stars doubled their lead with 3:42 left in the first when Wyatt Johnston skated past a stickless Jake Middleton on a power play and wired the puck into the top right corner of the net.

That start coupled with Duchene’s fluky goal was enough to withstand a late rally by the Wild.

“We still found a way to come out and give ourselves a chance in the third,” said Middleton, whose hit on Duchene in that period led to an instigator penalty on Alexander Petrovic for fighting Middleton.

Buium drew a fourth power play later in the third, and the Wild made Dallas pay again — this time on a Kirill Kaprizov shot from the left circle with 6:56 remaining. But that’s as close as the Wild would get; Radek Faksa (18:18) and Roope Hintz (19:50) dumped pucks into an empty net.

“We started making really good plays in the third period and hanging onto pucks, making plays,” Buium said. “We have so many skilled guys in this room. I think if they just trust each other and trust ourselves, we can make more plays and just sustain O-zone time, and we’ll probably see more go in the back of the net.”

Kaprizov, who assisted on Boldy’s goal, is up to nine points, which are tied for the most in the NHL.

As for the power play, that’s on a mindboggling tear.

The nine consecutive goals are a franchise record and tied for the third longest streak in the NHL since 1933-34.

“Gotta keep it up and then once those start going in on 5-on-5, we’re getting our chances,” Boldy said. “They’ll go in.”

Aside from starting goaltender Filip Gustavsson, who finished with 20 saves, the Wild kept their lineup the same from the victory over Los Angeles.

They also returned rookie Hunter Haight to the minors and called up Ben Jones.

Oettinger still hasn’t lost to the Wild in regulation in his career; this win improved him to 8-0-3.

As the sample size grows, what works — and doesn’t work — for the Wild is becoming clearer.

The circumstances surrounding this loss are tough: Travel after a late game, plus Dallas waiting at home for the Wild, isn’t ideal.

But until the Wild fix their execution at even strength — they are getting pucks to the net, hit a couple posts and had Dallas scrambling late — this problem will follow them.

“It’ll come,” said Boldy, who had a career-high 10 shots. “It’ll come.”

The Wild will have a few days to reset before their road trip continues Friday at Washington.